FRESH CHARACTERS.
In order to a right comprehension of ensuing facts, we will take
advantage of our privilege as story tellers, to go back a fortnight,
and allow the reader to be witness of a scene intimately connected with
the most important events of this history, and which took place a few
hundred miles from the spot where accident had collected our principal
characters.
The Cordillera of the Andes, that immense spine of the American
continent, the whole length of which it traverses under different names
from north to south, forms, at various elevations, immense _llanos_, on
which entire people live at a height at which all vegetation ceases in
Europe.
After crossing the Presidio de Tubar, the advanced post of civilization
on the extreme limit of the desert, and advancing into the mediano
region of the _tierra caliente_ for about one hundred and twenty miles,
the traveller finds himself suddenly, and without any transition, in
front of a virgin forest, which is no less than three hundred and
twenty miles deep, by eighty odd miles wide.
The most practised pen is powerless to describe the marvels innumerable
inclosed in that inexhaustible network of vegetation called a virgin
forest, and the sight, at once strange and peculiar, majestic and
imposing, which it offers to the dazzled sight. The most powerful
imagination recoils before this prodigious fecundity of elementary
nature, continually springing up again from its own destruction with
a strength and vigour ever new. The creepers, which run from tree to
tree, from branch to branch, plunge, at one moment, into the earth,
and then rise once more to the sky, and form, by their interlacing
and crossing, an almost insurmountable barrier, as if jealous nature
wished to hide from profane eyes the mysterious secrets of these
forests, beneath whose shade man's footsteps have only reached at long
intervals, and never unpunished. Trees of every age and species grow
without order or symmetry, as if sown by chance, like wheat in the
furrows. Some, tall and slight, count only a few years; the extremities
of their branches are covered by the tall and wide boughs of those
whose haughty heads have seen centuries pass over them. Beneath their
foliage softly murmur pure and limpid streams, which escape from the
fissures of the rocks, and, after a thousand meanderings, are lost in
some lake or unknown river, whose bright waters had never reflected
aught in their clear mirror save the sublime secrets of the solitude.
There may be found, pell-mell and in picturesque confusion, all
the magnificent productions of tropical regions:--The acajou; the
ebony; the palisander; the stunted mahogany; the black oak; the cork;
the maple; the mimosa, with its silvery foliage; and the tamarind,
thrusting in every direction their branches, laden with, flowers,
fruits, and leaves, which form a dome impenetrable to the sunbeams.
From the vast and unexplored depths of these forests emerge, from time
to time, inexplicable noises--furious howls, feline miauls, mocking
yells, mingled with shrill whistling or the joyous and harmonious song
of the birds.
After plunging boldly into the centre of this chaos, and struggling
hand to hand with this uncultivated and wild nature, the traveller
succeeds, with axe in one hand and torch in the other, in gaining, inch
by inch, step by step, a road impossible to describe. At one moment, by
crawling like a reptile over the decaying leaves, dead wood, or guano,
piled up for centuries; or by leaping from branch to branch, at the
tops of the trees, standing, as it were, in the air. But woe to the man
who neglects to have his eye constantly open to all that surrounds
him, and his ear on the watch: for, in addition to the obstacles
caused by nature, he has to fear the venomous stings of the serpents
startled in their lairs, and the furious attacks of the wild beasts.
He must also carefully watch the course of the rivers and streams he
meets with, determine the position of the sun during the day, or guide
himself at night by the Southern Cross; for, once astray in a virgin
forest, it is impossible to get out of it--it is a maze, from which no
Ariadne's web would help to find the issue.
At last the traveller, after he has succeeded in surmounting the
dangers we have describe, and a thousand others no less terrible, which
we have passed over in silence, emerges on an immense plain, in the
centre of which stands an Indian city. That is to say, he finds himself
before one of those mysterious cities into which no European has yet
penetrated, whose exact position even is unknown, and which, since
the conquest, have served as an asylum for the last relics of Aztec
civilization.
The fabulous accounts given by some travellers about the incalculable
wealth buried in these cities, has inflamed the covetousness and
avarice of a great number of adventurers, who, at various periods,
have attempted to find the lost road to these queens of the Mexican
prairies and savannahs. Others again, only impelled by the irresistible
attraction extraordinary enterprises offer to vagabond imaginations,
have also, especially during the last fifty years, set out in search of
these Indian cities, though up to the present time success has never
crowned these various expeditions. Some have returned disenchanted, and
half killed by this journey toward the unknown; a considerable number
have left their bodies at the foot of precipices or in the quebradas,
to serve as food for birds of prey; while others, more unfortunate
still, have disappeared without leaving a trace, and no one has ever
heard what has become of them.
Owing to events, too long to narrate here, but which we shall describe
some day, we have lived, against our will, in one of these impenetrable
cities, though, more fortunate than our predecessors, whose whitened
bones we saw scattered along the road, we succeeded in escaping
from it, through dangers innumerable, all miraculously avoided. The
description we are about to give, then, is scrupulously exact, and
cannot be doubted, for we write from personal observation.
Quiepaa Tani, the city which presents itself to the traveller's sight
after leaving the virgin forest, of which we have given a sketch,
extends from east to west, and forms a parallelogram. A wide stream,
over which several bridges of incredible lightness and elegance are
thrown, runs through its entire length. At each corner of the square an
enormous block of rock cut perpendicularly on the side that faces the
plains, serves as an almost impregnable fortress; these four citadels
are also connected by a wall twenty feet thick, and forty feet high,
which, inside the city, forms a slope sixty feet wide at the base. This
wall is built of native bricks, made of sandy earth and chopped straw;
they are called _adobes_, and are about a yard long. A wide and deep
fosse almost doubles the height of the walls. Two gates alone give
access to the city. These gates are flanked by towers and pepper boxes,
exactly like a mediaeval fortress; and, what adds to the correctness of
our comparison, a small bridge, made of planks, extremely narrow and
light, and so arranged as to be carried away on the slightest alarm, is
the only communication between these gates and the exterior.
The houses are low, and terminate in terraces, connected with each
other; they are slight, and built of wicker and canaverales covered
with cement, in consequence of the earthquakes so frequent in these
regions; but they are large, airy, and pierced with numerous windows.
None of them are more than one story in height, and the fronts are
covered with a varnish of dazzling whiteness.
This strange city, seen from a distance, as it rises in the midst of
the tall prairie grass, offers the most singular and seductive sight.
On a fine evening in the month of October, five travellers, whose
features or dress it would have been impossible to distinguish, owing
to the obscurity, came out of the forest we have described above,
stopped for a moment, with marked indecision, on the extreme edge of
the wood, and began examining the ground. Before them rose a hillock,
which, if no great height, yet cut the horizon at right angles.
After exchanging a few words, two of these persons remained where they
were; the other three lay down on their faces, and, crawling on their
hands and feet, advanced through the rank grass, which they caused to
undulate, and which completely concealed their bodies. On reaching the
top of the mound, which they had found such difficulty in scaling, they
looked out into the country, and remained struck with astonishment and
admiration.
The eminence, at the top of which they were, was perpendicular on the
other side, like all the rest of the ground which extended on either
side. A magnificent plain lay expanded a hundred feet below them, and
in the centre of the plain, at a distance of about a thousand yards
from them, stood, proud and imposing, Quiepaa Tani,[1] the mysterious
city, defended by its massive towers and thick walls. The sight of this
vast city in the midst of the desert produced on the minds of the three
men a feeling of stupor, which they could not explain, and which for
a few moments rendered them dumb with surprise. At length one of them
rose on his elbow, and addressed his comrades.
"Are my brothers satisfied?" he said, with a guttural accent, which,
though he expressed himself in Spanish, proved him to be an Indian.
"Has Addick (the Stag) kept his promise?"
"Addick is one of the first warriors of his tribe; his tongue is
straight, and the blood flows clearly in his veins," one of the men he
addressed, answered.
The Indian smiled silently, without replying;--this smile would have
given his companions much matter for thought, had they seen it.
"It seems to me," the one who had not yet spoken said, "that it is very
late to enter the city."
"Tomorrow, at sunrise, Addick will lead the two Paleface maidens to
Quiepaa Tani," the Indian answered; "the night is too dark."
"The warrior is right," the second speaker remarked, "we must put off
the affair till tomorrow."
"Yes, let us return to our friends, whom a longer absence may alarm."
Joining deeds to words, the first speaker turned round, and, exactly
following the track his body had left in the grass, he soon found
himself, as well as his companions, who imitated all his movements, at
the skirt of the forest, into which, after their departure, the two
persons they left behind had returned.
The silence which reigns beneath these gloomy roofs of foliage and
branches during the day, had been succeeded by the dull sounds of a
wild concert, formed by the shrill cries of the night birds, which
woke, and prepared to attack the loros, humming birds, and cardinals,
belated far from their nests; the roaring of the cougars; the
hypocritical miauling of the jaguars and panthers, and the snappish
barks of the coyotes, which reechoed, with a mournful sound, from the
roofs of the inaccessible caverns and gaping pits which served as
lurking places for these dangerous guests.
Returning on the trail they had traced with their axes, the three men
soon found themselves near a fire of dead wood, burning in the centre
of a small clearing. Two women, or rather girls, were crouching,
pensive and sad, by the fire. They counted scarce thirty years between
them; they were lovely, and of that creole beauty which the divine
pencil of a Raphael has been alone able to reproduce. But at this
moment they were pale, seemed fatigued, and their faces reflected a
gloomy sorrow; At the sound of the approaching steps they raised their
eyes, and a flash of joy illumined their faces like a sunbeam.
The Indian threw some sticks on the fire, which was threatening to
go out, while one of the hunters occupied himself with giving their
provender to the horses, hobbled a short distance off.
"Well, Don Miguel," one of the ladies said, addressing the hunter
who had taken a seat by her side, "shall we soon near the end of our
journey?"
"You have arrived, señorita; tomorrow, under the guidance of our friend
Addick, you will enter the city, that inviolable asylum, where no one
will pursue you."
"Ah!" she continued, looking absently at the Indian's gloomy and
apathetic face; "we shall separate tomorrow."
"We must, señorita; the care for your safety demands it."
"Who would dare to seek me in these unknown districts?"
"Hatred dares everything. I implore you, señorita, to put faith in my
experience; my devotion to you is unbounded. Though still very young,
you have suffered enough, and it is time that a blessed sunbeam should
brighten your dreary brow, and dispel the clouds which thought and
grief have been so long collecting on it."
"Alas!" she said, as she let her head droop, to hide the tears that ran
down her cheeks.
"My sister, my friend, my Laura!" the other maiden said, embracing her
tenderly, "be courageous to the end. Shall I not be with you? Oh, fear
nothing!" she added, with a charming expression. "I will take half your
grief on myself, and your burthen will seem less heavy."
"Poor Luisa!" the maiden murmured, as she returned her caresses.
"You are unhappy through me. How shall I ever be able to repay your
devotion?"
"By loving me, as I love you, cherished angel, and by regaining hope."
"Before a month, I trust," Don Miguel said, "your persecutors will be
prevented from troubling you again. I am playing a terrible game with
them, in which my head is the stake; but I care little, so long as I
save you. On leaving you, permit me to take with me, in my heart, the
hope that you will in no way attempt to leave the refuge I have found
for you, and that you will patiently await my return."
"Alas, Caballero! you are aware that I live only by a miracle; my
relatives, my friends, indeed, all those I loved, have abandoned me,
except my Luisa, my foster sister, whose devotion to me has never
swerved; and you, whom I do not know, whom I never saw, and who
suddenly revealed yourself to me in my tomb, like the angel of divine
justice; since that terrible night, when, thanks to you, I emerged from
my sepulchre, like Lazarus, you have shown me the kindest and most
delicate attentions; you have taken the place of those who betrayed me;
you have been to me more than a father."
"Señorita!" said the young man, at once confused and happy at these
words.
"I say this to you, Don Miguel," she continued, with a certain feverish
animation, "because I am anxious to prove to you that I am not
ungrateful. I know not what God, in His wisdom, may do with me; but I
tell you, that my last thought, my last prayer will be for you. You
wish me to await you; I will obey you. Believe me, I only dispute my
life through a certain feeling of anxiety, like the gambler at his last
stake," she added, with a heartbreaking smile; "but I understand how
much you need liberty of action for the rude game you have undertaken.
Hence, you can go in peace; I have faith in you."
"Thanks, señorita; this promise doubles my strength. Oh, now I am
certain of success!"
A rude jacal of branches had been prepared for the maidens by the other
hunters and the Indian warrior, and they retired to rest.
Although the young man's mind was so full of restless alarms, after a
few moments of deep thought he laid himself down by the side of his
companions, and soon fell asleep. In the desert nature never surrenders
its claims, and the greatest grief rarely succeeds in gaining the
victory over the material claims of the human organization.
Scarce had the first sunbeams begun to tinge the sky of an opal hue,
ere the hunters opened their eyes. The preparations for starting were
soon completed; the moment of separation arrived, and the parting was a
sad one. The two hunters had accompanied the maidens to the edge of the
forest, in order to remain longer with them.
Doña Luisa, taking advantage of an instant when the road became so
narrow that it became almost impossible for two to walk side by side,
drew nearer Don Miguel's hunting companion.
"Do me a service," she whispered, hurriedly.
"Speak," he answered, in the same key.
"That Indian inspires me with but slight confidence."
"You are wrong; I know him."
She shook her head petulantly. "That is possible," she said; "but will
you do me the service I want of you?--if not, I will ask Don Miguel,
though I should have preferred him not knowing it."
"Speak, I tell you."
"Give me a knife and your pistols."
The hunter looked her in the face. "Good!" he said presently. "You are
a brave child. Here is what you ask for." And, without anyone noticing
it, he gave the objects she wished to obtain from him, adding to them
two little pouches, one of gunpowder, the other of bullets.
"No one knows what may happen," he said.
"Thanks," she answered, with a movement of joy she could not master.
This was all that she said; and the weapons disappeared under her
clothes, with a speed and resolution which made the hunter smile. Five
minutes after, they reached the skirt of the virgin forest.
"Addick," the hunter said laconically; "remember that you will answer
to me for these two women."
"Addick has sworn it," the Indian merely replied. They separated; it
was impossible to remain longer at the spot where they were, without
running the risk of being discovered by the Indians. The maidens and
the warrior proceeded toward the city.
"Let us mount the hill," Don Miguel said, "in order to see them for the
last time."
"I was going to propose it," the hunter said, simply.
They went, with similar precautions, to the spot they had occupied for
a few moments on the previous evening.
In the brilliant beams of the sun, which had gloriously risen, the
verdurous landscape had assumed, a truly enchanting aspect. Nature
was aroused from her sleep, and a most varied spectacle had been
substituted for the gloomy and solitary view of the previous night.
From the gates of the city, which were now widely opened, emerged
groups of Indians on horseback and on foot, who dispersed in all
directions with shouts of joy and shriller bursts of laughter. Numerous
canoes traversed the stream, the fields were populated with flocks
of vicunas, and horses led by Indians, armed with long goads, who
were proceeding toward the city. Women quaintly attired, and bearing
on their heads long wicker baskets filled with meat, fruit, and
vegetables, walked along conversing together, and accompanying each
phrase with that continual, sharp, and metallic laugh, of which the
Indian nation possess the secret, and the noise of which resembles very
closely that produced by the full of a quantity of pebbles on a copper
dish.
The maidens and their guide were soon mixed up in this motley crowd, in
the midst of which they disappeared. Don Miguel sighed.
"Let us go," he said in a deep voice.
They returned to the forest. A few moments later, they set out again.
"We must separate," Don Miguel said when they had crossed the forest;
"I shall return to Tubar."
"And I am going to try to render a small service to an Indian chief, a
friend of mine."
"You are always thinking of others, and never of yourself, my worthy
Marksman; you are ever anxious to be of use to someone."
"What would you have, Don Miguel? It seems to be my mission--you know
that every man has one."
"Yes!" the young man answered in a hollow voice. "Good-bye!" he added
presently, "do not forget our meeting."
"All right! In a fortnight, at the ford of the Rubio; that is settled."
"Forgive me my chariness of speech during the few days we have spent
together; the secret is not mine alone, Marksman; I am not at liberty
to divulge it, even to so kind a friend as yourself."
"Keep your secret, my friend; I am in no way curious to know it; still,
it is understood that we do not know one another."
"Yes; that is very important."
"Then, good-bye."
"Good-bye!"
The two horsemen shook hands, one turned to the right, the other to the
left, and they set off at full speed.
[1] Literally, _Quiepaa_, sky, _tani_, mountain, in the Zapothecan
language.